usa today columnist steve strauss, who doles out advice to small business owners. > > what i love is that this actually is a great time to be in business. yes, there are some businesses that are struggling, but we just saw that the unemployment rate dipped to 7.8%. why is that? there are 28 million businesses in this country. 99% of those are small businesses, meaning 1-, 5-, 10-, 20-employee businesses. so if the unemployment rate is coming down, what does that mean? it means small business is going up and is growing. so it's actually a great time to start and run a business. my dad owned some carpet stores in southern california when i grew up, and the economy went up, and the economy went down, and his business went up, and his business went down. but the truth is, these days, no one has to be dictated by your own local economy. you can do business all over by being online. and there are so many more tools available that allow you to run your business. so, my dad ran his business by himself. if he didn't know something, he didn't know something. today what would you do? you would